 Hello and welcome to Top 10 Emerging Technologies, a show from the World Economic Forum that looks at the performance of some of the most promising technologies of the last decade. I'm your host, Greta Keenan, and in this episode, we'll be talking about Social Robots, which made it onto our 2019 list. To get us started, let's take a look back at this video from one of our events in 2016, where Vanessa Evers, Professor at the University of Twente, explains the rise of social robotics. And the core idea behind making machine socially intelligent is that sentient beings need social referencing. So social referencing is so great, robots should do it too, but first there are some technical challenges that we need to solve, for instance low energy consumption. Throughout these technical challenges, what these robots really need to do is understand the social environment that they are in. And what happens is when we put these behaviors into robots, they are easier to understand because they are much more familiar, but it also means that they become very rich social characters and it may even mean that we empathize with them or maybe even develop a social bond with such robots. Here today to tell us more about social robots is Hennie Admoni, Assistant Professor of Robotics at Carnegie Mellon University. Hi Hennie, thanks for joining us. Hi, great to be here. So most of us are familiar with robotics that are used on factory floors or possibly even in medicine, but what do we mean by the term social robots? When we think about traditional robotics right now, we think about robots on the factory floor or robots that are assembling things. Social robots interact with people through conversation. They often have personality. In our consciousness as a society, been thinking about social robots for a very long time. But the reality is that the robots that are out in the world right now are much more physical robots that tend to be isolated from humans. So how do these social robots detect, interpret and respond to human behavior? Social robots need to detect and interpret and respond to human behavior and that requires a lot of multidisciplinary technology. So robots need to be able to listen to conversations and understand what it is that we're saying and not just the words that we're saying but also our tone of voice. They need to be able to recognize humor and sarcasm. So these are perception questions that have to do with how people communicate. But once you've perceived this information, it's also really important to interpret it. So the science there gets into questions of psychology and linguistics and machine learning, where we can combine these fields to try to build models of how to interpret the inputs that we're getting from our cameras and microphones. And then of course, the last step is for robots to produce some kind of output to respond to that social behavior, maybe with social behavior of their own so that they become true social partners. So you obviously look at robotics and social robotics in the lab, if I may say. But how widely are social robots being used in general society? It's actually a very challenging problem. If you think about, for example, how long it takes children to develop a sense of social norms to understand politeness or to understand appropriate behavior. To imagine a social robot that is capable of doing something even at the level of a child means that we have to provide a lot of input to that system. But it's also it's not just having the data is also understanding how to take that input and infer the right kind of social behavior. There's a lot of research on integrating robots more fully. The challenge is how do you build that robot into a compelling system that is actually engaging enough to use long term. So if we had to look in the time frame of the next five to ten years, how can you see social robots being integrated in our society? I would say we're going to see an increase in robots for education because there's a lot of interest in that field. People are investing in that. We're going to see a lot of robots that are out in the world that aren't necessarily designed as social robots, but need to take some social element into account. So one example here are delivery robots. Nobody could have imagined the importance of remoteness and of having robots that could mediate between social human interactions. And so now it's a really different world that we're that we're thinking about. And the role of social robots becomes much more relevant and day to day for us. So I think there's going to be a lot of robots out in the world that need to interact socially. And so they're going to need to be able to do things like social navigation, which is moving around in a space in a way that respects social norms, like not entering somebody's personal space or giving somebody an indication that you see them from far away that you're going to yield to them. So I think that even more than just strictly social robotics applications, what we're going to see is robots that are out in the world that need to incorporate social knowledge. And finally, you know, you're interested in robotics because ultimately you're interested in people and and those interactions between robots and people. So how do you think we as a species are going to change the more that social robots become a part of our everyday lives? So I think that with social robots, I hope my my optimistic vision is that we will use these robots to connect people at the end of the day, that, you know, a social robot is not a replacement for social interaction, but becomes a medium through which communities can engage and people can interact. My pessimistic vision is that social robotics would become kind of a flash in the pan. I think that people are so good at social interaction that we have such high expectations for what robots are going to be able to achieve. I think it's really important as we build robots into our lives that we consider the ethical implications of robotics that we consider who has access to these different technologies and what these technologies are perpetuating in terms of the social norms that are already embedded in society. So I actually think that social robots might be an interesting lens for us to look at societal biases and the ways we've constructed society and start to question whether those are the the structures that we want to bake in moving forward or whether we can use social robots to build new, more equitable societal structures. Thank you so much, leaving us with a lot of food for thought there. And thank you for showing your optimistic and pessimistic vision on where social robots are going to go. Thank you so much. Global sales of consumer robots are expected to reach $19 billion by the end of 2025, with more than 65 million robots sold each year. Most of the robots we're familiar with today are physical robots lacking the social skills of a human being. But as we've heard from Professor Henny Edmony today, this is where the technology is headed. Scientists from different fields are working together to design social robots capable of detecting, interpreting and responding to human behavior, which it turns out is no small feat. These social robots could revolutionize remote education and health care and even deliver goods to your front door with some level of customer service. If designed right, social robots could help us build more equitable societies. But if they fail to live up to the expectations we have for human robot interaction, they might not become as widespread as we thought. If you enjoyed this episode, please join the conversation on social media and we'll see you next time for another episode of Top 10 Emerging Technologies.